Long Island City and Astoria Grow Up Alongside Film Industry

The Epoch Times recently published an article noting the changes that Long Island City and Astoria have experienced with the rise of Kaufman Astoria Studios. Reporter Catherine Yang notes how real estate developer George Kaufmann started the change in 1980 with the purchase of the studio property, which had lain vacant and vandal-prone after the last tenant, the U.S. Army, stopped production there in 1970.

Now, the Kaufman Astoria Arts district (the first noted arts district in Queens) has a flea market outside the studio in the summer. Expanding film and TV production bring benefits to general hardware stores like Mutual Hardware in LIC, which had to rent space to hold all the lighting truss its been selling to shows.